We are still receiving negative feedback from the road hauliers' strike, which is leading to serious consequences, despite the unblocking of the situation.
The protest action of the road hauliers has caused huge damage to the fruit and vegetable sector and the whole Italian supply network. "The strawberries, which are highly perishable, were at risk of not being sold and of rotting because the trucks stopped for days without any notice. The storage cells are almost full, and we will soon have no place to store the crops," said Gianno Lo Magno from Ragusa, who grows soilless strawberries on 5 hectares.
Lo Magno is the managing director of Only Sicilian Vegetables, a young company that focuses on quality strawberries, grown in high-tech greenhouses, precisely to obtain crops with the best aroma and taste.
"The logistics are currently in total confusion and we are at risk of irreparable damage because we are unable to deliver the strawberries on time. Our company has been able to rely on the support of foreign customers interested in the crop. It has required a lot of investment and sacrifice, not only in terms of cultivation, but also in terms of finding sales channels. Inevitably, our customers turned to other growers, far away from Sicily, compromising the stability of the supply relationship that we had achieved with so much effort."
"We were operating profitably and had nothing to complain about. We were earning €3.00 per kilo for the strawberries. Now all this threatens to vanish into thin air, along with our crops, and with that, also the reputation we have built over the years."
Gianni Lo Magno
If things are going badly for strawberries, they are not going much better for the company's other crops, because at the moment everything depends on transportation. Lo Magno and his partners grow courgettes, cherry tomatoes and datterino tomatoes under controlled cultivation methods. These are currently not selling on the market, just like the strawberries. Only Sicilian Vegetables confers its entire harvest to the growers' organization AlbaBio.
Fore more information:
Gianni Lo Magno
Only Sicilian Vegetables
Via G. La Porta, 11
Marina di Ragusa - Italy
+39 379 201 3199
